Researchers at the Shimoyama-Matsumoto Laboratory at the University of Tokyo have created a tiny flapping wing robot weighing a mere 0.28 grams or roughly a hundreth of an ounce.

The ornithopter uses rubber bands to flap a pair of butterfly wings at a frequency of about 10 Hz.

The researchers constructed and tested three types of artificial butterfly wings using thin polymer membranes and micromolded polyurethane veins to investigate the morphological function of actual butterfly wings.